L.J. Greene ~ After Effects ~ Blog Tour / ARC Review / Giveaway

What could be more terrifying than falling in love with the person who is your good place? Maybe realizing just a smidge too late that there can be dire consequences to becoming your best friend’s lover.

The lives of Keir Stevens and Selene Georgiou serendipitously collide mid-span on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, one jarring step ahead of fate. He’s a temporary transplant from Seattle; she’s facing the biggest career opportunity of her life. They have no notion of the common thread that connects them.

As they come to discover they share a similar adversity, their relationship evolves from a fun and frivolous infatuation with nowhere to go into a true friendship with sincerity, humor, and respect at its heart.

It’s awfully hard not to fall in love with that – even if you’re pretty darn certain you shouldn’t.

But when love and friendship suffer their own devastating collision – their interests brutally conflicting – the consequences of blurring the lines between the two suddenly become real. In the end, which one will be the stronger? And more importantly, can either survive?

AFTER EFFECTS is a standalone dual POV adult contemporary romance about the things we choose in life out of all the things that are beyond our choosing – a tale of love and friendship, of time and how we spend it, and of the inner wars that ultimately show us what really matters.

My ARC Review:

This was my first book by L.J. Greene, even though its part of a series and haven’t read the others, this as a standalone was a really good read which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Keir and Selene meet in the most unfortunate of circumstances – she crashes into the back of his food truck! But their attraction to each other is obvious right from the start, but it is a strong friendship they develop first, each finding something in each other, unknowingly at first that they have a tragic and heartbreaking family trait in common.

Their connection is so strong and undeniable that this quickly moves from friends to lovers, even though both of them fear this next step, Keir lives in a completely different state and is just looking to open up another business there, and Selene is busy at work with a massive client that takes up all of her time here. Can a long distance relationship work for them?

This is quite an emotional read at times, especially with their tragic family connection, both being the rock each other needs. Keir is a wonderful character, even though he is very wary of a long distance relationship having had a failed one under his belt, he can see no other way out, as Selene has got under his skin and he can’t think of not having her in his life. This was the one sided bit of the relationship and Selene was as all in as he was, but didn’t see herself with him in the future, believing the relationship was bound to end at some stage due to their differences in work and living arrangements, though never wanting it to end. The problems they have to work with and around being so very real and it was so very easy to get lost in their story.

It was a well written and believable story line and you could easily connect with the characters and what they were going through. Highly recommended reading.

I’m so glad you enjoyed Aftereffects! I’ve always believed that the friends/lovers theme is so enduringly powerful theme because the risk/reward ratio is so high on both sides. How amazing is it to be loved by the person who knows you best – knows all your flaws – and thinks you’re perfect anyway. But if things don’t quite go as planned, how difficult to lose both the love of your life and the person you most want to call when you lose the love of your life? There are tough choices to make there an, as you so rightly pointed out, they are very real. Thank you so much for taking the time to read Aftereffects and to write such a thoughtful, considered and personal review. I am so glad to have had you on my book tour and so appreciative of the work you do that gives a voice to indie authors like me who otherwise may not have one. I am also very grateful that you posted to Goodreads. If it’s not too much trouble, I’d love to have you post to Amazon, and/or anywhere else you like. Warm regards, LJ